“A collection of profound and epic album reviews and musical articles by former astronaut and brain surgeon, Alasdair Kennedy. Reaching levels of poetry that rival Keats and Blake, the following reviews affirm Alasdair to be a prodigy, a genius and a god whose opinion is always objectively right. He is also without a doubt the most modest man in the universe.” - Alasdair Kennedy

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Friday, 27 June 2014

‘So you think electronic music is boring. You think it’s stupid. You think it’s repetitive. Well … it is repetitive’. Whose idea was it to open the album up with this quote? If people didn’t think electronic music was stupid they will now.

Aside from the silly quote, New Eyes sets off to a fairly solid start. There’s some immediate creativity on show – the opening track, ‘Mozart’s House’, merging 8-bit techno and classical strings. There are other creative touches on this album that certainly separate Clean Bandit from being just another UK electronic act. There are tropical steel drums and harmonised auto-tuned choruses and garage beats. Unfortunately, the thing that really holds Clean Bandit back is their attempt to be poppy. They stick to safe song structures and basic melodies in an attempt to be accessible but don’t really add much catchiness. Pretty much every track features a different vocalist, but none of them deliver a chorus that sticks in my head (except for Jess Glyne on ‘Rather be’ but that’s just because of excessive radio airplay). The lack of catchiness may just be because none of the vocalists have that memorable a voice, or they simply haven’t developed a unique vocal personality. For the most part, the singers are all unknowns – a generous move made by Clean Bandit but one that hasn’t paid off.

Another problem with Clean Bandit’s style is their implementation of retro sounds. There aren’t any dubstep wubs or over-the-top drops on this album. It’s all garage and early house. Sadly, what’s missing is the sense of nostalgia. Unlike Disclosure or Lone or Machinedrum, Clean Bandit have taken the sound of the early nineties, but left out all the soul. So you think electronic music is boring? Sadly, Clean bandit’s brand of electronic music kinda is.

There is a big part of me that wants to like this album, largely because it’s so positive and summery and I like positive, summery stuff. However, the music just feels a little characterless. The only track I really dig on this record is ‘Birch’, which ironically happens to be the most downbeat single on the album. Vocalist, Eliza Shaddad, feels like she’s actually putting her heart into it and the backing instrumental is pretty atmospheric.

Overall, 'Birch' is the only track I'd recommend from this album. The title track, 'New eyes', with its rapped verses from Lizzo and harmonised autotuned chorus is one that may also be worth a listen. Personally, I’m on the fence about the harmonised autotuned chorus though. Is it supposed to sound out of tune?

Friday, 20 June 2014

LARPing (Live Action
Role-Playing) is an activity in which a bunch of nerdy adults dress up in fantasy/historical
costumes and fight mock battles against one another. I didn’t know it was a
thing until sludge metal band, Red Fang, introduced it to me in their 2010 music
video for ‘Prehistoric Dog’. Watch it below:

For some inexplicable
reason this niche activity seems to have become the focus of several other metal music videos recently, the latest being Mastodon’s ‘High Road’. Is this purely
an accidental trend? Are metal bands conspiring together to promote LARPing?
Will LARPing become a future component of all heavy metal music videos?

Protest the Hero pit Trekkies against Jedi Junkies.

Mastodon's brand new single. This one's even got a storyline and jeez it's pretty emotional.

Wednesday, 18 June 2014

This is pure black metal for black metal purists. Mayhem
don’t expect everyone to get this as demonstrated by the album title. ‘Esoteric’
means ‘intended for or likely to
be understood by only a small number of people with a specialized knowledge or
interest.’ I had to Google that. Black metal expands one’s vocabulary!

Unfortunately, I’m not a
purist. As much as I like the old skool stuff, I like a bit of modern
experimentation too. Mayhem are stuck in the past. They’re not killing each
other, making necklaces out of each other's skull fragments and burning churches like they were in the nineties –
they’ve fortunately moved on from that – but musically they’re still relying on
the same old tricks. The riffs are heinous, the drums are ferocious, the vocals are
diversely demonic and sole remaining original member, Necrobutcher, still knows
how to make that bass growl. It’s all deliciously evil, but just lacks a bit of novelty. This will appeal to a lot of fans but not me.

Tuesday, 17 June 2014

Matt Cutler AKA Lone is a wizard and a godsend to electronic
music. Using every production trick in the book, he specialises in creating the
most warm, summery, feelgood instrumental landscapes audially conceivable.

Galaxy Garden, his
last album, was a neon-coloured trip that mixed spacey, hypnotic synths and
nostalgic rave sounds. Matt Cutler has stripped back his sound on this album.
The music is more hip hop based using more basic thunking drum patterns and less busy instrumention. The glossy colours
are more subdued this time around too, although each track is still likely to
invoke shivers down the listener’s spine. Hell, Lone’s music is so spine-tinglingly
beautiful you’ll slip a disc.

In a way, Galaxy Garden’s
flaw was that it was almost too intense throughout. Too much of a good thing
caused the listener to almost get numbed to the heavenly sounds by the end of
the record. Reality Testing has a
raw, simplistic feel to it and whilst the sounds are pure ecstasy throughout,
they aren’t quite shoved in the listener’s face as brashly. The samples of city
noises – car horns and distant voices - offer a classy, urban feel to the record. I was
going to name off some of my favourite tracks at this point but damn, they’re
all good, from the psychotropic piano on Aurora
Northen Quarter to the energetic, jaunty bounce of Airglow Fires.

Saturday, 14 June 2014

Okay, so
there’s a little too much country on this album for my liking. Do all rock
musicians have to go through this phase? Is it a rite of passage?

Unlike
some artists out there, Jack White does manage to infuse the Nashville sound
into his style, whilst keeping a level of creativity and excitement. His lyrics
are a big help. They’re deep, sometimes a little too deep for a lazy listener
like myself to bother decoding i.e. ‘birds
of a feather may lay together/ but the ugliest one’s always under the gun’.
It sounds cool and all but the preachy proverb nature of it turns me off wanting to deconstruct it and build my own interpretation.

Other
tracks like ‘Three Women’ - a deep
purple-style rock ode to group sex – appeal much more to the meat-headed rock
side of me. When this album rocks, it rocks. The title track ‘Lazaretto’ and the
third to last track ‘That Black Bat Licorice’ stand out for me with their
infectiously groovy riffs – the gain knob set to 11.

This is
definitely a record I’ll return to as there's definitely a sense of flair here, the album being his most genre diverse yet. With repeated listens I might get more
patient with the lyrics and start getting more out of it. Right now, the whole experience feels
pretty lukewarm. I just wish there was less country.

Wednesday, 11 June 2014

So this isn’t officially an album. Its half an album that
has been deliberately leaked, disc 1 of what will be a double album from
experimental hip hop group, Death Grips.

There’s not much I can say about this group other than that
they’re fucking out there, constantly pushing musical boundaries, doing things that
no other musician has tried before. My review of their last album Government Plates should be more
insightful.

This new half-album-thingy is entitled ‘Niggas on the moon’
and will be disc 1 of Death Grips’ upcoming album ‘the powers that b’. This is different
to anything death grips have ever done before for a variety of reasons:

It has Bjork on it. Bjork is all over this CD.
Her vocals are literally on every track.

MC Ride doesn’t seem to be as angry – he’s not
screaming as much on this album as on previous releases

The instrumentals are less consistent, less
clean, less predictable. They’re constantly changing in rhythm and tempo and they
seem busier overall

Why am I numbering this list?

First time I listened to this, I wasn’t sure whether I liked
it. I’m still not sure if I like it or not and so there won’t be a star rating
at the end of this review (it’s only half the album anyway and I’ll give it a
proper review once the whole thing drops).

Off the bat, I really
liked the glitchy Bjork vocals. They give off a unique sound I’ve never heard
before. I also like the fact that MC Ride shouts less, as his lyrics are
clearer as a result. Romantically named tracks ‘Have a sad cum’ and ‘Fuck me
out’ get more sexual than anything Death Grips have previously released, which is interesting. What
I’m finding hard to get into is the ever-changing rhythms and busy instrumentals.
There’s a sense of groove and cohesion that’s missing – something that really
hooked me to Death Grips in the beginning with tracks like ‘Takyon’ and ‘Guillotine’. Indeed,
this messiness does help to create that disorientating, ‘noided’ feel that
Death Grips are all about – but it also makes the whole thing less infectious
and less catchy than previous releases.

Saying that, the more and more I listen to the album, the
more and more I like it (I’ve only listened to it three times through so there’s
still room for growth).

Check out ‘Niggas on the moon’ down below, if you haven’t
already. Leave a comment, tell me what you thought about this semi-record-thingymajig
and have a nice day :)

Tuesday, 10 June 2014

I
misread the title of this album as ‘animal abortion’ the first time it was
announced. I’ve been listening to too much death metal!

...Anyway, 50 cent. Who is
he? It’s been a while since Fiddy’s last release but anyone who knows anything
about hip hop will be familiar with the bulletproof business tycoon and noughties
rapper and his much played hits ‘In Da Club’ and ‘Candy Shop’.

Personally,
I’ve always found 50 Cent pretty mediocre. He’s definitely real (he used to be
a genuine crack-dealing gangster) and I admire that about him, but his unenthusiastic
delivery and run-of-the-mill lyrical content have never grabbed me. This album contains
some catchy hooks here and there that I like (‘Pilot’ and ‘Hustler’), and Fiddy’s
flow is always on point. There are definitely some fun moments on this album.
Tracks like the self-titled ‘Animal Ambition’ stick out with its growl chorus
and funky instrumental. Sadly, a lot of the other tracks are otherwise pretty
generic and the guest emcees don’t offer much (I can’t stand Jadakiss’s verse
on 'Irregular Heartbeat'). Also, the tracks that try to be dance floor fillers simply
aren’t punchy enough for today’s standards. 'Twisted' is a nice track but it
doesn’t have the energy to be blasted in a club. Props to 50 Cent for not jumping
on the trap rap bandwagon though and keeping his style.

Animal
Ambition is definitely an album that I can jam with and it had my head bobbing
along throughout but there’s nothing outstanding about it. Fiddy fans should still check it out. Also, its worth noting that the rapper has another album coming out this September, so if you like this record you can expect more in a few months!

Friday, 6 June 2014

Cali
group, Clipping, are an experimental hip hop act with elements of industrial
noise and Death-Grips-style abrasiveness thrown in. Unlike Death Grips, their
emcee, Daveed Diggs, takes a traditional, clean style of rapping (i.e. no angry
shouty hobo vocals). The crazy intensity and experimentation is mainly in the beats.
Highlights include the minimalistically ambient track ‘Dream’, which rolls
straight into the track ‘Get up’ literally featuring an alarm clock bleep as an
instrumental. Then there’s the second track, ‘Body and Blood’, which has a menacing
industrial Gesafflestein vibe to it. The beats are less noisy than on Clipping’s
debut, Midcity, which was too harsh
for me in most parts. They feel more creative and varied this time round.

Worth noting
even more than the instrumentation is Daveed Diggs’ delivery. Although by no
means as experimental as the beats, there are still some extremely original
ideas being thrown around such as the flows on ‘Story 2’ that constantly keep morphing
to match the ever-changing timing of the beat. The eery whispered chorus on ‘Dream’
also sticks out. Who whispers a chorus? Most impressive however is the speed
and precision that Daveed Diggs pulls out on this record. If the first track of
Midcity didn’t already wow you, then the
lightning speed of this album’s ‘intro’ track certainly will.

There
are moments on here that I’m not completely down with. ‘Tonight’ featuring
Gangsta Boo contains an auto-tuned chorus. I already expressed my views on Auto-tune
in my review of Future’s lastest album ‘Honest’. To put things mildly, I’m not
a fan. The closing track – a noisy mish-mash of excerpts from the album cut and
clipped together – also drags on a little too long for my liking. It’s a creative
touch but isn’t pleasant on the ear and could be made more succinct.

With
these issues in mind, I shouldn’t really give the album a full score. However,
part of me is so impressed by the originality of this record that I feel I can
overlook these two moments. Clppng might
just be the most original album I hear this year! Not only does it challenge my
perceptions of music, it also feels a suitable length, showcases impressing musical
talent both in production and rapping ability and succeeds in invoking a
whirlwind of emotions in me – the most important being suspense. The first time
I heard this record was at 4am and it was such a surreal, mindblowing
experience I thought I’d dreamt it the next morning. Repeated listens keep
offering me new insights (I forgot to mention that the lyrics here are pretty
inventive too) showing that this album also has playback value. Basically, in a nutshell, this album is straight up awesome.

Tuesday, 3 June 2014

Coldplay
have always had a reputation for being wishy-washy and a little depressing. However,
like Radiohead, there’s no denying that the band clearly have their own identifiable
sound. Never has this been clearer than on Ghost
Stories which takes their traditional ethereal, melodic quality and romps
it up to new heard levels. Maybe I’ve just been listening to too much angry
music recently, but this album’s breezy mix of lofty synths, deep bass and
electronic drum beats made for a truly hypnotic listen. The lyrics on Ghost Stories are also the most
emotional I’ve heard from the band. Chris Martin’s breakup with Gwyneth Paltrow
has made for an album of heartbreak. He doesn’t offer much new advice on the
done-to-death subject matter, but he gets personal enough for us to share his
pain.

Indeed,
there isn’t much flair or punch to this album. The Avicii-aided ‘A Sky Full of
Stars’ tries to take things more up-tempo only to sound more radio-friendly and
the most dull track, ‘O’, finishes off the record leaving the whole experience
feeling rather meagre. Although their most emotional and their most consistent
sounding record, Ghost Stories also winds
up being their least musically adventurous and yet somehow also their least
poppy record. It’s just very average.